New gates installed on Brooklyn Bridge to stymie potential climbers

The city's Department of Transportation installed several new security gates on the Brooklyn Bridge before the Labor Day weekend, a spokesman for the agency said Tuesday.

The gates, which were put up to deter people from climbing in light of the recent security breaches, were installed Thursday, said the DOT spokesman.

In July, two German artists said they climbed to the top of the towers and replaced the American flags with white ones in honor of the iconic bridge's German engineer.

Last month, a Russian tourist scaled the cables to snap a few photos with his iPhone. He was arrested and charged with several offenses, including second-degree reckless endangerment and trespass, according to court records.

On Thursday, John Miller, NYPD deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, said the biggest issue was figuring out a long-term solution to making the gates harder to climb around.

"Over the next couple of weeks you'll see those barriers become more difficult to compromise," Miller said at an unrelated news conference. "And that will be the work of DOT."

It is equally important to secure other city-controlled bridges, Miller added.

"Each one of these bridges is constructed differently. Each one has a different set of gates," he said. "We're looking at those so that we don't secure the Brooklyn Bridge and then push traffic to other bridges for the same kind of stunts."